to think men shouldn't be midwives

[igglepiggle599]

Just saying, I have nothing against the male midwives themselves. I'm sure they're amazing at what they do and are lovely, kind, caring people. They themselves are not actually the issue I have.

I think many women are uncomfortable with the idea of a male midwife for any number of reasons, and there's a good chance that any given woman will automatically feel uncomfortable when a male midwife walks in. I also find it very disingenuous when people say that they can simply request another midwife. I'm sure that's often true (though maternity units presumable don't have an infinite supply of midwives at any given time, so there's at least a hypothetical scenario in which this wouldn't be possible?). I don't think it's fair that women should be put in a situation where they have to speak up and say that they want a different midwife, particularly when they are extremely vulnerable and possibly in excruciating pain. I'm not a particularly shy or passive person, but I would find that conversation very difficult even when not in labour. I might panic in the moment and wonder whether that amounted to some kind of breach of equality laws, or I might be in such a state that I just didn't want to risk any kind of conflict. Ultimately I would end up with a birth that may well be smooth from a medical point of view but somewhat tainted emotionally, as I would know that an aspect of the situation made me uncomfortable and I hadn't felt able to say anything.

Also, is midwifery even the kind of profession that would actually benefit from gender diversity given that women are the ones who give birth? I'm sure these very talented, compassionate men would be just as valued in a different branch of nursing. Obviously there are male doctors who can end up delivering a baby, but somehow it feels different for men to train in a role that is so intimate.

Very much open to different perspectives.

Oh yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to imply that birth doesn't require medical professionals. What I mean is that it isn't a procedure that happens to you, like an operation or an examination or a catheter insertion. It's different to a medical procedure, in which a professional operates on you. In typical medical procedures, the active person is the medical professional: the patient either does nothing, or perhaps reports back how they feel. In birth, the main actor is the woman. She does the pushing and the activity of giving birth. The professionals guide her.

Of course, birth can then quickly become a medical procedure.

When I talk about under medicalisation I don't mean that it's a bad thing to have access to medicine and to professionals - it isn't, I think that every woman should get to choose the birth interventions that she wants. What I mean is that if we treat brith solely as a medical procedure that centers the professional as the main actor, we miss out the sense in which the woman is the main actor in her birth. She's not just a patient, who needs to feel happy. She's the essential person doing the work in that situation. Everyone else is her assistant.

Yes, and you're missing the point.

Birth is driven by hormones and how relaxed and comfortable and safe the woman feels. Many women feel safer and can relax better in birth when the birth attendants are other women. It's not about whether the birth attendants have given birth - it's not about their experiences. It's about how an environment where the birth attendants are women, too, makes the labouring mother feel.

You're still thinking of it from the perspective and experience of the midwife, when actually, it's about how the sex of the birth attendants makes the labouring woman feel. Because the woman's state of mind in labour directly impacts both pain levels, and progression.

It's the same argument as why we have single sex changing rooms, when some women may be lesbians. It's not about the life experiences of the women. It's about the vulnerability and privacy of women, generally, and the fact that lots of women feel less anxious when acutely vulnerable if they're around other women, without strange men.

Some women don't mind, and that's great. That's their business. Others do - a fairly large number do, actually. And that's their business, too.

No (big) problem with male midwifes but I think they should only work in hospitals. I'm in no way shy but if a male midwife had showed up at my home to give me a sweep, I'd have sent him away.

I agree. I really feel that the fact I didn't feel comfortable effected the progression of the birth.

I don't think anyone read my birth plan either. I said no students and yet there was a student present for example.

That rate is per year.

3.3% of women have been sexually assaulted in a single year.

Your posts are suddenly making so much more sense.

In real life only when asked for. On here completely different people can scroll on.

So because your male midwife was good they all will be? My male midwife was not good at all but I'm not going to suggest that mean all will be not good as that would be very sexist. Why would men be better or worse than women?

@KatieB55 "Male nurses I've seen in hospital have been much better than many of the female ones."

Course they have. Because men are so much better at everything than women, aren't they? Oh, except for girly stuff like housework and so on...,

I wonder if there are parallel threads on male dominated fora with numerous posts about how female mechanics the posters have used were way better than all the male ones? I doubt it somehow. Yet here it's always never-ending cheerleading for men. I really don't get it personally.

ETA obviously the intimate nature of midwifery is very different to mechanics, I'm not equating on that level. It's purely the instinct posters have to leap to the defence of men I'm referring to and wondering if the same works the other way round albeit on a slightly different level ...

I think this is really important, and highlights why the roles of midwife and obstetrician are so different. I don’t think there’s anything else quite like birth in the medical world, where the patient is also an active participant and (should be) involved in rapid decision-making. Where the comfort of the patients can have such an impact on hormone production and therefore outcome. It is in no way comparable to being wheeled off for a surgical procedure and therefore I think all theses comparisons to other medical disciplines are a bit pointless.

Personally I’m fine with it. At the hospital I was under there was a fantastic male midwife in the day assessment unit who was the only one that could successfully get blood out of my wobbly veins.

Midwives do loads of jobs other than delivering anyway but I wouldn’t have minded if he’d delivered my baby. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t want a strange man or a strange woman looking at my fanny but it’s not normal circumstances and that’s the last thing on your mind.

And it can’t be about them not experiencing it themselves because not all female midwives will experience childbirth either

That’s not legal, you have to consent to having students present- they can only be there with your permission.

Actually, in the cybersecurity space, which is my field, the conversations between men about female colleagues have changed drastically over just the last 5 years with a push for acknowledging excellence where it is due and pushback when this is not happening. It has been a long time coming but it is happening now. Not all men are the enemy an increasing number are our allies. Trick is spotting who’s who 😉

Students should only be present with patient consent - that shouldn't have happened.

I had a male student midwife back in the 80s, he was fantastic, very calm and very caring

If it was a thread saying that women shouldn’t be mechanics or firefighters or insert any other male dominated role then I imagine so.

If women should be heard if they have poor experiences with male midwives, nurses, nursery workers etc then good experiences shouldn’t be dismissed either.

Yes I’ve pointed this out too and been ignored..

Even that statistic shows 1 in 30 uk women were raped in a 12 month space which is very depressing anyway.

@Cyb3rg4l that's really good to hear, thanks. I'd still doubt many of the men are taking it to the extreme of declaring women in the field to be so very much better than the men though! Neither would I expect or want them to.

I agree, if a woman has had a good experience with a male midwife that's great. It's the tendency for a significant number to then follow it up with how terrible all of the female ones have been which I personally find depressing.

Don’t forget the controlling men voting for ‘no male midwives’ because the thought of another man in intimate contact with their partner makes them uncomfortable, for the sake of completeness, if we are assuming that there are men on here voting to protect men’s rights that is.

Thsts one thing I will NOT do - go to a male gynaecologist - I remember at school we thought they were the definition of creep!

OK before I get told off, that was what we SAID at school.

You don't think that some male midwives are more mindful about things like compassion and informed decision making because they know that being male means that some of their patients/clients will be more suspicious of them? Just like women in overwhelmingly male dominated professions often say they have to work twice as hard and be twice as good to overcome prejudice about their ability to do their jobs?

FWIW - as far as misogyny goes, I'm just listening to a podcast about Project 2025, and the Christian Nationalist project to get rid of no fault divorce, make it harder for women to access reproductive care, basically shove women back into the kitchen and the bedroom where they think they belong, and shore up the patriarchy - the hilarious irony of GC's being on the same side as Christian Nationalists on the trans issue - which some GC posters here think was instrumental at getting Trump back into office 😂😂😂

I’m sure I thought and said a lot of daft stuff when I was at school. We all thought sex sounded ridiculous and disgusting, for example. As I matured, and learned more, my opinions often changed.

Most gynaecologists aren’t men anymore anyway. 80-90% of newly qualified gynaecologists and obstetricians are female. So they are disappearing from the profession.